Today we intended to get up early and do some light hiking, but the howler monkeys stayed quiet, so we slept in late (7 am! - 8 am CDT).

We had breakfast, then sought out our horse guide. We had some small stubborn horses to ride around the trails. Initially, we had to get used to the horses. Mine and Kyra's were constantly vying for "first place". They were a bit difficult to control.

(Side note: I was speaking Spanish to most of our guides, and it was a bit difficult to talk about horse stuff. I didn't know the words relating to horses! I managed to use similar words to get across what we needed to know.)

We saw quite a bit of the grounds. After about an hour, the guide, Herman, asked if we wanted to continue, and we did. We got to a certain point where our guide told us to stop and turn right.

Right? Where? (See picture.)

It was a treacherous path going along a small gorge to the stream below. We were all nervous, the horses especially. We egged the horses on, according to our guide, and descended. It was curvy, muddy, and precipitous. Once to the stream, the water was quite high and flowing rapidly. My horse did not want to cross.

(The last three pictures are looking down.)

Eventually we set forth, and I had to raise my feet to keep them from getting soaked. The horse very carefully trod across the stream. We made it up, and we were both a bit shaken. Kyra followed shortly after, probably with a similar experience.

The other side was not as bad, but still quite tricky for a wet horse. We curved around and passed under a hanging bridge (the one we couldn't cross with the horses).

On the way back, it was like before. We got a very good picture of use on the horses with Arenal behind.

This evening we will take it easy, likely taking a short hike. We have a big day tomorrow scaling Cerro Chato.

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In the afternoon we hiked many trails we took on the horses, including one small one called Los Congrejos (the crabs).

In the evening, we went on some trails we visited the second day, and we saw some more animals, including monkeys.